On Aug. 27, 2003, The Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB) announced it was funding a $50 million five year partnership with MIT, the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and the California Institute of Technology.   The partnership aimed to understand and harness biological mechanisms for fabrication of new materials and devices to equip the soldier of the 21st century. 

The Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB) was founded earlier in the year as an Army-sponsored University Affiliated Research Center (UARC).